


Hamburgers and Borsch

by AconitumNapellus



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Best Friends, Feel-good, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-12 23:23:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14737760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AconitumNapellus/pseuds/AconitumNapellus
Summary: Written to a prompt by threecee on livejournal:I’d like an AU story about the meeting of two young boys:Illya Nickovitch Kuryakin is the privileged son of two very high-ranking Party members,and his father has just been assigned as Soviet Ambassador to the USA.Napoleon Solo was born into poverty. His mother is employed as a cleaner at the Soviet Embassy, his father hasn’t been in the picture as far back as Napoleon can remember.And here it is, as a thank you for helping with my husband's fundraiser. Also thanks to theniftycat on tumblr for the advice on Russian names, way, way back.I've inserted Nikolay Kuryakin's ambassadorship into the period between 10 April 1946-24 October 1947, when the Soviet Ambassador was actually Nikolai Vasilevich Novikov.





	Hamburgers and Borsch

_The Soviet Embassy, Washington D.C., 1946_

  


‘Just be quiet,’ his mother hissed at Napoleon as she ushered him in through the service door of the Mrs. George Pullman House on 16th Street Northwest. She liked to call it that to her friends because it was better, among some of them, than calling it the Soviet Embassy. Some of them were fervently in support of the Communist regime in that country, but others were awfully snobbish, despite the poor rewards they garnered from their own country’s capitalism. So she said she worked at the Mrs. George Pullman House, and they thought she worked for a fine lady, not an agent of the Red Menace.

‘Mom, I could have stayed at home, you know,’ Napoleon complained as he slipped in behind her. ‘Really, I’m thirteen years old. I could’ve stayed at home.’

‘ _ Not _ on your own,’ she said, and he knew there was no point in arguing. He wasn’t even really that sick, but she was protective of him, had always been protective of him. He was her only son, all she had in the world, and she couldn’t afford to take him to the doctor every time he was ill. He had been a little feverish yesterday, but he felt fine now.

He suspected there were other reasons she didn’t want to leave him at home, anyway. They had only had the new television for a week before it was repossessed. He had grown used to coming home and seeing gaps on the shelves, items of furniture gone. The kind of men that came into a single mother’s apartment and took her things to pay for debts weren’t the kind of men she thought her precious boy should be around. He wondered what would be missing when they got back today.

‘You’ll love this place, anyway, Leon,’ she told him, and there was a sparkle in her eyes that Napoleon didn’t often see. ‘You’ve never seen ceilings this high. Oh, the chandeliers...’

‘Won’t your boss be afraid of catching something from me?’ Napoleon asked rather sullenly. The kitchen they were walking into looked a world away from high ceilings and chandeliers. It was all aluminium pans and utensils and hard, practical surfaces. ‘Or of me stealing something?’

‘Don’t be silly, Leon,’ she chided him quickly, her voice hushed. ‘Mr Kuryakin is a lovely man.’

_ Not lovely enough to pay a good wage _ , Napoleon thought, but he kept that to himself. His mother was proud despite her poverty.

‘Here,’ she said, picking up a utilitarian basket of cleaning cloths and sprays. ‘You take a cloth. We need to dust the grand saloon first.’

Napoleon grinned, because he suddenly visualised a Wild West saloon like he had seen in that brief week when they had owned a television.

‘The Russian Ambassador has a saloon?’ he asked. He wondered if he had swinging doors.

His mother flushed, and he realised he’d said something wrong.

‘I meant salon. It’s a salon. Like a hairdresser’s. Leon, you know I didn’t get such a good education as papa would have liked.’

He felt bad then. He knew a lot of things about his mother’s life hadn’t been as she would have liked.  _ Solo _ seemed to sum her up. She had been fighting alone for years.

‘ _ You _ will, though,’ she promised him. ‘You keep studying, and we’ll get you the best education there is.’

He took a cloth from the basket and clenched it hard in his hand, following his mother out of the quiet, empty kitchen and into corridors beyond. He wanted a good education. He wanted it so much the want burned inside him. But he also wanted to leave school and earn money so his mother didn’t have to work so hard. He felt a spear of envy for the kind of people who could afford servants and cooks and people to wait on them hand and foot. He’d never be that kind.

  


((O))

  


The place was incredible. It wasn’t as flashy as he’d expected, either. He’d heard people talk about Commies. He imagined them either all in rags and eating potatoes out of the ground, or like great glitzy jokes, with no idea of good taste, revelling in the profits that they skimmed from the servitude of the people. But there was refinement in this vast mansion. It was very quiet throughout. The décor he had seen so far was mostly cream and gold, and of course the gold spoke of the oppression of the little people that Communism was supposed to represent; but then a little uneasy thought wormed its way in. Wasn’t this the Mrs. George Pullman House? Hadn’t  _ her _ sort performed exactly the same kind of oppression?  Wasn’t his mom still struggling to survive despite working all the hours God gave her, and being a good person, besides? Maybe Communism and Capitalism were different sides of the same coin.

He felt as if he had been dusting specks from gilt for hours, but the fancy clock on the wall told him it had been less than twenty minutes. Maybe he  _ was _ a little ill still. Maybe if he were in school, bending over algebra and geometry, he’d be feeling feverish and wanting to go home; and if he went home, his mom would be out at work, and if the men came to repossess something he’d be the only one there.

‘Hey,’ his mother said, laying the back of her hand lightly on his forehead. ‘Are you feeling ill, Leon? You want to take a rest?’

‘Just a bit hot,’ he murmured. He looked around at the exquisitely upholstered chairs. They looked like they’d never been touched by human hands, let alone the hands of a teenage boy. ‘Can I – I mean – am I allowed to sit on those chairs, mom?’

She bit her lip into her mouth, looking torn.

‘I’m not dirty,’ he said, suddenly indignant. What made him less worthy to park his behind on these chairs than anyone else?

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I know. But – it’s protocol, Leon. It’s – difficult.’

‘Isn’t this the Land of the Free?’ he asked then.

She was still biting her lip into her mouth, and she didn’t answer.

‘Sit down,’ she said eventually. ‘Go on. Mr Kuryakin won’t mind. He’s a lovely man.’

All the same, she jumped when the door opened, and then relaxed when it was only a boy who came in. He was a small, thin boy, gangly, with pale blond hair and blue eyes, the diametric opposite of Napoleon’s dark hair and well-developed frame. Napoleon was moving into his teens without hesitation. This boy looked as if he wanted to stay a six year old.

‘Oh,’ the boy said, and even in that one syllable Napoleon could hear the foreignness in his voice.

He looked to his mother before he reacted, but she was favouring the boy with the kind of smile she reserved for friends.

‘Illya,’ she said, and she sounded so warm and welcoming that for a moment Napoleon felt jealous. Then he felt as though this were his mother’s parlour, and she were welcoming a guest into it. He let himself dwell on that thought. Imagine if this were his home?

The boy stood in the door, hesitant and shy. His fingers were curled around the door edge, and he looked as if he wasn’t sure whether to come in or not.

‘Illya, this is my son, Leon,’ his mother said in a slow, careful voice; the kind of voice she used with the immigrants on their street. ‘I had to bring him to work today because he wasn’t well.’

‘Oh,’ the boy said again, and he let go of the door and came fully into the room.

Napoleon had been wondering if he were the child of another worker here, but it was obvious by his clothes that he wasn’t. They looked as if they were straight out of the store. He flushed momentarily, then felt angry at himself for flushing at the presence of this little boy. The boy walked forward and held out a hand, as if he had been trained in polite greetings.

‘Good morning, Leon,’ he said in very monitored tones. ‘I am Illya Nikolayevich Kuryakin. I am pleased to meet you.’

Napoleon took his hand and shook it with a little feeling of shock. Then  _ this _ , this scrawny little boy, was the son of the Russian Ambassador?

‘Pleased to meet you too,’ he said rather automatically.

There was a moment of awkwardness, as if both boys were trying to work out where to go from here. Then Illya Nikolayevich Kuryakin gave Napoleon a brilliant smile, and said, ‘Here, I do not see many guests. Let me, please, show you my home.’

  


((O))

  


‘How old are you?’ Napoleon asked the boy curiously as he led him with a surprising confidence up the great curving staircase that rose from the front lobby. They had met a uniformed guard there, and Illya had spoken to him in swift and incomprehensible Russian, with an undeniable note of command in his voice. The guard had acquiesced, even to such a child, and waved them on.

‘I am twelve years,’ the boy said, and Napoleon couldn’t hide his surprise.

‘Gee, well, you’re – little,’ he said before he could help himself.

The boy glowered a little, but then he shrugged. ‘In the war, my papa was not diplomat,’ he said. ‘In the war my papa was soldier. My mama and I had little. What we had, we shared.’

‘Oh,’ Napoleon said, and he felt rather ashamed. He had assumed that this boy had grown up with everything he wanted, brought to him on a silver plate. ‘You were in Moscow?’ he asked. ‘Leningrad?’

Those were the only two Soviet cities he could think of. He should have studied harder at geography.

‘I was in Kyiv,’ Illya told him. Then he said in a very dark tone, ‘Germans were also there. So mama is important woman, but she stays in Kyiv because of her duty, and no one is important to Germans. We have food, but what we have, we share.’

‘Oh,’ Napoleon said, more softly still.

The war had been a distant thing for him. He was too young to worry about being conscripted. The war had been far, far away. He had friends who had lost fathers, but he had no father to lose. And this boy had been right in the middle of it. With the way people talked about the Red Menace, sometimes he forgot that the Russians had been on the right side in the war.

‘Leon,’ Illya said, as if he wanted to change the subject. ‘This is short for Leonard,  _ да _ ? Leonid?’

‘Well...’

Napoleon looked down at his toes, and noticed how scuffed his shoes were. They were getting too small for him, and his big toe was starting to wear through on the right. He glanced at the boy’s shoes. They were bright, supple, well polished, and a little larger than his own. He felt brief astonishment at that. The boy reminded him of a puppy, small but with big paws.

‘Um, no,’ he said. ‘It’s short for Napoleon.’

The boy stopped on the grand staircase and stared at him in astonishment. Suddenly, he laughed.

‘Napoleon?’ he asked. ‘ _ Как _ Napoleon Bonaparte?’

Napoleon looked down at his feet again. ‘Well, yeah, it was – a family name,’ he muttered.

That’s what mom had told him, anyway. He didn’t know much about his family. He thought he probably didn’t want to know about his dad’s family. They probably weren’t worth knowing about. And mom – Well, she just didn’t talk about it much. She had worshipped her father, but something had happened. He didn’t know. It was just mom and him.

Perhaps diplomacy ran in the blood, because the gawky blond boy stopped laughing and led Napoleon away from the top of the staircase, to another, more workaday one, which led up to a floor that was entirely less grand.

‘Here,’ he said, opening a door. ‘Here is my playroom.’

‘ _ Playroom _ ?’ Napoleon echoed, because it looked more like the science room at his school. There were no rocking horses, no spinning tops or hoops. In fact, the only concession to pleasure seemed to be a little television set in the corner, which he gazed on with jealous eyes. The rest of the room was given over to benches and shelves littered with electronics, test tubes, bits and pieces he couldn’t even begin to identify, and books, books, books.

He gravitated to the books even before the television, but he was disappointed. They were all in Russian.

‘The  _ телевизор _ , it is to help with my English language,’ Illya said. ‘Papa allowed it.’

‘You watch much?’ Napoleon asked. He would have loved to have turned it on, but that would be rude. He might have been brought up poor, but he had been brought up polite, at least.

When the boy smiled his whole face lit up. It was a joyful thing to see. He didn’t know anyone whose face could change so quickly.

‘Yes, I watch much,’ he said, his grin mellowing to something a little more self conscious. ‘I watch cowboy shows. You know.’ And he mimed holding a gun in each hand, and shooting from the hip.

‘What about all this stuff?’ Napoleon asking, fingering some of the bits and pieces on the stained wooden bench that ranged right along one wall of the room. A window gave out over the street in front of the building, affording a wonderful view of the spreading city around. It looked like a totally different place from up here, with wide streets and rich architectural frontages. There were two different cities, Napoleon knew, intertwined with one another, with groups of people who were as different from each other as fish and mammals.

‘Here, I practice  _ моя физика _ ,’ Illya said, and his eyes were sparkling. ‘My physics. I practice my physics. Some day I go to best university. But – my English must be good.’

‘Gee, your English is amazing!’ Napoleon told him sincerely. ‘I wish I was that good at Russian.’

A flush reached the boy’s cheeks. ‘Well, I learn for six months now. Since we came. But I have not much chance.’ He looked up then, a sudden expression of eagerness on his face. ‘But you are Американец. And I speak with you, and I am better? Perhaps – my papa would pay you to talk?’

That felt a little strange. It felt a little wrong. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It almost felt a little dirty.

‘I don’t need to be paid to talk,’ Napoleon said rather sullenly, but when Illya’s face fell he immediately regretted his tone. ‘I mean – I’m glad to talk,’ he said quickly. ‘We don’t need the money. Not that much, I mean. I’d like to come and talk to you.’

_ And watch the television _ , he thought, but he didn’t say that aloud.

‘You like physics?’ Illya asked, and he shrugged. He was interested in science at school, but he was more interested in reading about how people thought and what made them tick.

‘Yeah, I like physics,’ he said. He didn’t want to derail this fragile friendship.

‘I like physics,’ Illya said, and his whole being seemed to glow. ‘The atom. Is atom not the most – ’ He faltered, his lack of English getting the better of him. He lapsed into a stream of Russian, and Napoleon stood there, politely bewildered. Then the boy came back to himself, and smiled shyly, blushing red.

‘Perhaps I teach you Russian too,  _ да _ ? If you teach me English?  I teach you about borsch and you teach me about hamburgers? I teach you about atom in Russian? You teach me about cowboys and shoot ’em ups?’

Napoleon laughed. He was about as far from cowboys in Washington D.C. as this boy would have been from them in Russia.

‘Well, I’ll watch T.V. with you, if you want,’ he offered magnanimously.

His new friend saw right through that generosity, and laughed.

  


((O))

  


‘I call you Napoleon,’ Illya announced on the second day of their friendship. ‘More distinguished than Leon, I think. People think you are called Leonard. No. I call you Napoleon.’

That felt just fine. His mom called him Leon and the kids at school called him Leon, and only called him _Napoleon_ , or sometimes the ghastly _Nappy,_ when they were teasing him. But from Illya, it wasn’t teasing. It felt just fine.

‘What about your name?’ he asked. ‘Does Illya have a short?’

Illya grinned, and rolled his eyes. ‘You do not know Russian names, no?’

Napoleon shook his head, and Illya downright laughed.

‘Well. Illya is short, so for short you use Illya. But if you are colleague, but not friend, you call me Illya Nikolayevich. That is my name and my patronymic – name of my father. You do not know me, you call me Tovarisch Kuryakin. If you are friend, maybe now you call me Illyushka, but when we are adult, you call me Illyukha, or maybe Nikolaich, but if you are Napoleona – I mean, if you are woman – you call me Illya. You are my mama or papa, or kind uncle, or so, you call me Illyusha, Illyushenka, Illyushka. My brother – I have no brother, but you understand, yes? My brother call me Illya or Illyushka, or I hit him.’

Napoleon rubbed his hands over his face, then looked back at Illya again.

‘You’re joking?’ he asked.

Illya solemnly shook his head.

‘I’m supposed to remember all of that?’

He grinned then. ‘No. You call me Illya, I call you Napoleon. One day you learn to say Illya properly, yes? Eel-ya. Not Ill-y-er. Yes?’

Napoleon grinned back, and very deliberately repeated Illya’s name, wrongly.

Illya glowered, but then he laughed.

  


((O))

  


‘We hide a whole family in our house in war,’ Illya told him in a confidential tone.

Napoleon had been coming back to the great mansion to talk with this Russian boy for weeks. Somehow they just hit it off, despite their differences. They spent hours just talking, and Illya’s grasp on English was improving every day. He didn’t tell a single one of his friends that this was where he was going after school. He didn’t talk about what his mom got in return for these visits either, because he didn’t like to think about it. He knew that Illya’s father gave her something extra in return for Napoleon talking English to his boy. He knew that the nearly-new shoes she had brought home the other day must have been Illya’s too, and he felt odd about that, but it did mean that he didn’t have to think about when his toe was going to burst through the leather. He wondered if perhaps the money his mom got would be enough for him to go to university. Perhaps…

‘It is family of Jews,’ Illya said. They were sitting in his playroom; his lab, really. The whole air smelt of solder and electronics. He had discarded an experiment so he could talk to Napoleon.

‘It is  _ a _ family,’ Napoleon corrected him quietly. Illya seemed to welcome interruptions for corrections, no matter how important a subject he was discussing.

‘It is  _ a _ family of Jews,’ Illya nodded. His face was very sober. ‘There was mother –  _ a  _ mother, and a son, and  _ две _ little girls – two little girls. They are all very young.’

‘ _ Were _ all very young,’ Napoleon said. ‘It  _ was _ a family of Jews. They  _ were _ all very young.’

He felt bad correcting Illya over a story like this. He made up his mind to stop. He’d butt in when he was talking about physics instead. Illya needed some kind of a brake when he was talking about physics.

‘The mother was a servant, like your mother,’ Illya said, and Napoleon avoided his eyes, because he didn’t like to think about his mother being a servant. She was a cleaner, and she did a darn good job. Someone needed to clean. ‘ _ Our _ servant. She was our servant. When the Germans came they were bad to Jews.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Napoleon said.

Some of the people on his street had agreed with what Hitler had done to the Jews. At least, at first they had spoken in support of him. Later they had shut up, most of them, and the one that did keep on saying those things got his teeth knocked out.

‘They ration our food,’ Illya said. ‘Everyone. Big, small. They say we are not human.’

Napoleon blinked. ‘ _ You _ ? You’re Jewish?’

Illya shook his head. ‘No. Kyiv is in Ukraine. Ukraine is part of Soviet Union. But Hitler tells them Ukrainians are not human. Russians – human, but Ukrainians, no. So they destroy our fields and they take some of us away, and they make us wear badges so they know we are Ukrainian, and not Russian.’

Napoleon’s forehead creased. ‘I thought you  _ were _ Russian?’ he asked. ‘Your father’s the Russian ambassador, isn’t he?’

Illya looked fierce then, and for a moment Napoleon imagined him grown full size, angry and ready to kill. He would be a scary opponent.

‘I am  _ Ukrainian _ ,’ he said with force. ‘My papa is Ukrainian. My mama Ukrainian. We are Ukrainian.’

Then he looked about, suddenly seeming scared.

‘You don’t repeat,’ he said in a low voice. ‘No? You don’t repeat.’

‘But – why can’t I repeat it?’ Napoleon asked, bewildered. Russian, Ukrainian, what was the difference? It was all the same place, wasn’t it?

‘ You  _ don’t _ repeat,’ Illya insisted. ‘For long time Russians are bad to Ukrainians. They starve us, they kill us, they rule us. So,’ he tilted his head from side to side in a gesture that looked very foreign to Napoleon. ‘We play their rules but we do not forget we are Ukrainian. My name, on paper we write with one ‘l’. In here,’ and he tapped his head, ‘it has two ‘l’s, Ukrainian way, and when it is safe, when I am big, perhaps I will write with two ‘l’s. But now, we stay quiet, we play the rules. My papa’s post – it is big honour.  He is Soviet Ambassador, for all of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. So you don’t say,  _ Illya says he is Ukrainian, not Russian _ . We never say that. Papa never say that.’

‘Okay,’ Napoleon said, nodding slowly. ‘Okay. I understand.’

It was like he and his mom, maybe, or a little bit like that. Sometimes she said they were Italian. Sometimes she said they were Irish. Sometimes they were all-American. It depended on where they were and who they were trying to please. But that was when she was trying to get the best price from the Irish guy at the fish market, or waiting for the unsold loaves at the end of the day from the Italian bakery, not because she was afraid she would be killed if she were found out.

‘So,’ Illya said. ‘The Germans – they make us wear badges. They take people away, make them work as slaves. They treat us as not human. But they treat Ukrainian Jews as worse than not human. They have no good rations. No meat, no milk, no fruit. They starve.’

Napoleon swallowed. It was hard to imagine. He didn’t begrudge Illya this grand house after hearing about his wartime experience.

‘My papa was with Red Army,’ Illya said. ‘My mama, I, we are at home. They will kill our servant and they will kill the children, children I play with and love. They will – ’ He turned his head a little on its side. ‘What is word? When there is no food?’

‘Starve,’ Napoleon said.

‘Yes. They starve them, or kill them. So we hide them. We have a cellar room, and we pull big, big shelves across doorway, and we hide mama, son, little girls, all in dark. They live in dark for two years. They are like – I don’t know the word. How is it? Without eyes?’

‘Blind,’ Napoleon suggested quietly.

‘Yes. They are as if blind. No light, because we cannot show people live in cellar. We cannot show we have cellar. They live in smell, in dirt. But they come out of cellar in 1943, and they are alive. We are all hungry, because we share our rations. We lose two years of growing, mama says. But we are all alive.’

‘That was a brave thing,’ Napoleon said.

Illya shrugged. ‘We do not think. We do. They are alive now. We are alive. It’s good.’

‘I didn’t really notice the war much,’ Napoleon said reflectively.

Oh, of course he had been aware of it. It had been all over the papers, people had talked about it in school, Roosevelt had come on the radio and talked about it, all the time, it seemed. But mom had carried on working and he had carried on going to school, and he didn’t notice so much difference in his own little world.

‘Your papa – he did not fight?’ Illya asked.

Napoleon squirmed uncomfortably. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, then he said quickly, ‘I never knew him. He – Maybe he died when I was a baby. I don’t know.’

‘Oh,’ Illya said. He must have understood Napoleon’s discomfort, because he turned to the electronics on the bench and said, ‘You will help with this, yes? This is experiment, but first I must build cathode ray oscilloscope.’

‘You’re going to go to university, aren’t you?’ Napoleon asked rather wistfully. ‘You’re going to do amazing things.’

Illya regarded him steadily through blue eyes, as if he were trying to read the boy before him. ‘That is what  _ you _ want to do,’ he said.

Napoleon shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t know if we’ll be able to afford it. My mom – You know, she doesn’t earn much.’

‘In my country, education is not bought and sold,’ Illya said rather proudly.

‘Yeah, well, in my country they don’t take people off and shoot them for saying they’re Ukrainian,’ Napoleon retorted quickly.

‘You will not tell anyone,’ Illya said then.

Napoleon could see the real fear in his eyes, so he smiled. ‘No. I won’t tell anyone, ever,’ he promised.

  


((O))

  


He wasn’t as good at Russian as Illya was at English. He didn’t think he would ever be as good at Russian as Illya was at English. Of course, Illya had an advantage, because he was living in a country that spoke English, and Napoleon’s only teacher was this boy a year younger than himself. They spoke a lot more in English than in Russian. But he spent almost nine months passing his evenings in Illya’s company, coming to see him on the weekends, talking to him about television and science and school and girls and what they might find in the future. Illya’s future seemed so bright. He wasn’t so sure about his own.

He had grown used to arriving at the service door and slipping in through the kitchen, and being waved up the stairs by whomever saw him. They all knew him by now. It was like a brief moment of being in another world, walking through that grand house full of people speaking another language. It was like going through the looking glass; until he got up to Illya’s room and opened the door and smelt the familiar smells of solder and chemicals and the pages of hundreds of books.

He tapped lightly on the door and pushed it open, and then stopped. The room was full of boxes. Illya was sitting amongst them on a stool, tinkering with something on the bench under the window; but everything else was packed away.

‘Illya!’ he said as he came in through the door, and the boy turned and gave him a wan smile.

‘Ah,’ he said, putting down what he was working with. ‘I’m glad you came today. I didn’t know how to send a message.’

They didn’t have a telephone in the Solo apartment. Of course they didn’t. If they did, it would have been cut off.

‘Illya, what’s happening?’ he asked, looking around, fingering at one of the boxes.

‘Very sudden,’ Illya said, pushing himself up off the stool and coming across the room. His footsteps sounded hollow on the bare floor. Even his rugs had been rolled up and taken away. ‘This is a diplomat’s life. Papa has been recalled, and so, we go.’

‘ You’re  _ going _ ?’ Napoleon asked in horror. ‘Back to Kyiv?’

Illya shook his head ruefully. ‘Not to Kyiv. To Moscow. Much further north than Kyiv. Isn’t that nice? To not go home to Ukraine, but to go to Moscow, in October? So it will be cold, and it will be new and strange, and we will be surrounded with Russian snobs. Isn’t that nice?’

He had grown well used to Illya’s sarcasm. The more his confidence in English blossomed, the more sarcasm he used.

‘Oh, Illya,’ he said. He looked around at all of the boxes. Everything he had known of his friend’s life, packed up in cardboard and wooden crates. ‘When are you leaving?’

Illya looked even more glum. ‘Tomorrow morning. We must get up at five o’clock. Who gets up at five o’clock?’

‘ _ Tomorrow morning _ ?’ He didn’t know what to say. ‘But – I – ’

‘I know,’ Illya said, and he opened his arms, and despite that not being how boys were supposed to be, Napoleon hugged him. His arms went all the way around him. Illya had grown a bit in the year since he had met him, but not much. He was still small and gangly and looked underfed despite eating everything presented to him like a starved dog. Napoleon was always amazed by how much he could eat.

‘All the way back to  _ Russia _ ,’ he murmured, letting go. Illya might as well be going to the moon. ‘You know, I’ll never see you again?’

Illya’s eyes suddenly looked liquid, and even bluer than usual.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I will go to university, and when I have been there I will move on to another university, I think, outside of Russia. Perhaps in your country, or in England, because you have taught me English so well. And you will go to university too.’

‘I don’t know,’ Napoleon said, suddenly uncomfortable in a way he hadn’t been around Illya for months. ‘I don’t know if we can afford – ’

Illya smiled then, a brilliant smile. ‘My papa has been speaking to people, Napoleon. He is friends with a man at Yale. You have very good grades, yes? He thinks a scholarship is possible. And, of course, he has been paying you as a private tutor to son of Soviet Ambassador for all this time.’

‘He – What?’ Napoleon stuttered. He knew that Illya’s father had been giving his mother money, but not that much. His mother had been very cagey about any amount. She had just said it was paid straight into a trust fund. ‘How much did – ?’

Illya shrugged. ‘Adult finances. He doesn’t tell me these things. Your mama doesn’t tell you these things. So I don’t know. But he has been paying you the wage of a private tutor. These are usually men with bills to pay, yes?’

‘Wow,’ Napoleon said. Suddenly his dreamed of future seemed possible.

‘Anyway,’ Illya said. ‘I don’t want to talk about leaving. I want to talk about now. I must go to bed early, because we leave early. So, we have some hours to have fun. You will help me with my experiment?’

‘No, I will not,’ Napoleon said firmly. He suddenly felt rich, and sad, and as if time were very short. ‘We will go for milkshakes and hamburgers, and let our hair down.’

Illya touched a hand to his short hair. ‘I don’t think I have enough hair to let down. Maybe I will grow it longer while I’m away. The Russian snobs will hate that.’

  


((O))

  


_Manhattan, Early 1960s._

  


‘You know, I’ve had a lot of complaints about appointing our first Soviet agent to U.N.C.L.E.,’ Mr Waverly was saying as he walked along the gunmetal grey corridors of U.N.C.L.E. headquarters with his brightest and best man. Intelligent, Yale educated, open minded, just different enough to be an asset and not a liability, Napoleon Solo had risen so fast through the U.N.C.L.E. ranks that some people thought he must have some kind of in with the boss. Other people talked about some mysterious _Solo luck_ , because how had a kid from Murder Bay ended up first at Yale, and then here? He didn’t have an in with the boss and he didn’t believe in luck. He just loved his job.

‘Well, the Soviets are people too,’ Napoleon shrugged. ‘Most people are decent at heart. I’m not going to take against someone just because of where they were born.’

‘No, indeed,’ Waverly nodded, glancing sideways at him. He knew everything about where Napoleon had been born, and how; maybe more than Napoleon himself. ‘That’s why I thought you were the best man for the job. I know you like to emulate your surname, but it’s high time you had a partner.’

‘Well,’ Napoleon murmured, because he wasn’t going to agree to take anyone on as a partner without vetting him first. He had seen too many good agents die because of bad partnerships. It didn’t even have to be as a result of incompetence. Partners had to have a connection that went beyond words. They needed to be able to read each other’s minds. He hadn’t found anyone like that yet.

‘I’m well aware that you have the final say,’ Waverly told him, giving him that piercing glance again. ‘But I think you’ll like this man. I’m almost certain you’ll like this man. And you already speak some Russian.’

‘He doesn’t speak English?’ Napoleon asked, startled. _That_ would be a stumbling block.

‘Oh, he speaks perfect English,’ Waverly said rather smugly. ‘He has had the most excellent tutors. He’s Cambridge educated, you know.’

They were almost at Napoleon’s office. It seemed a little odd to Napoleon to be introduced to a potential new partner this way instead of via a more formal meeting in Waverly’s office. But Waverly’s methods, although often incomprehensible, were usually sound.

‘There you are, young man,’ Waverly said, patting him on the shoulder as they reached the door. ‘Let me know this afternoon what you think of the fellow. I hope you’ll get along.’

_I hope so_ , Napoleon thought to himself. Even if he didn’t think the man was partnership material, he would still have to share his office. There just wasn’t room for another new office on this floor. It would be unbearable to share an office with a jumped up Russian idiot.

He pushed open the door. There he was, sitting at the new desk on the other side of the room, head tilted down because he was reading over some papers. Napoleon could see over-long blond hair and black-framed glasses. He was a small man. He looked underfed.

At the sound of the door opening, the man looked up.

Napoleon’s heart jumped.

‘Illya!’ he exclaimed.

The man got to his feet. He  _was_ small. He still did look underfed. He was thin and little and wearing tinted glasses to read, and he looked a hundred miles away from being an agent. But Napoleon  _knew_ he had everything that was required to be an agent.

‘Oh!’ Illya exclaimed as he stood. He looked utterly overwhelmed. For a moment his face was just blank. Then it split in a huge smile, and he opened his arms. ‘Napoleon, Napoleon! Oh, it’s been far too long! No wonder Mr Waverly was so cagey about telling me my new partner’s name!’

‘He said you were Russian!’ Napoleon replied. It was hard to speak because he was smiling so broadly. He met Illya halfway across the room, and fell into his hug. He could still get his arms all the way around Illya’s body, but he felt so much more solid than he had as a thirteen year old boy. There was muscle there, lots of it, compact and understated and strong.

‘Ukrainian,’ Illya replied, his voice muffled against Napoleon’s head. ‘For diplomatic purposes I call myself Russian, of course. But you know I’m Ukrainian.’

‘Of course you’re Ukrainian,’ Napoleon grinned. He held Illya, kept holding him. It felt so perfect. Everything felt perfect. ‘I thought I’d never see you again,’ he said.

‘My grandmother would say it is fate,’ Illya shrugged, and Napoleon unwrapped his arms and stepped back a little, just looking at him, drinking him in. ‘Who are we mere mortals to argue with fate?’

‘I see you got a better English teacher,’ Napoleon grinned, and Illya shook his head.

‘No. I started with the best. You build a house on good foundations.’

‘God, Illya,’ Napoleon said. He had a reputation of being able to talk his way out of anything, but he could hardly think of what to say to this miraculous appearance of his old, loved friend.

‘God is a figment of the imagination,’ Illya said. ‘Let’s feed this reunion with more substantial things. I hear they make excellent hamburgers in the commissary.’

‘Milkshakes too,’ Napoleon said.

He was remembering the last time he had sat with Illya over milkshakes, wanting time to stop and fate to twist another way, feeling bereaved even before his friend had gone. He put his arm over Illya’s shoulders, squeezing him in a little hug, before relaxing and walking him towards the door.

‘Come on, partner. Let’s go have hamburgers and milkshakes.’ 


End file.
